Paul Johnson and G. K. Chesterton on the Study of History

I was browsing Thomas Sowell's website today and came across a list of his favorite quotes.  I liked this one in particular from Paul Johnson:

The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.

That one's particularly important for the church in this particular historical moment.  With our modern loss of respect for history we've forgotten that there is nothing new under the sun.  I get pastor junk mail all the time and the selling point that trumps all other selling points is the word "new." 

I am thinking that it would do us all good to either laugh heartily or yawn sleepily whenever an exciting idea for church growth, or theology, or a paradigm shift in whatever is marketed to us as new.  Now it may be new to us, it happens all the time that I learn something I didn't know before.  But nothing is new.  I am thinking it would do us a great deal of good to assume that, even if we don't know anything about this new thing, that somewhere in history something similar was propounded. Thus we ought to look to the past to evaluate the idea rather than listen to the future promises this idea proposes.

I realize this is quite the snarky attitude but I think Johnson is on to something.  If we understand that everything old is new again then it seems that the one who believes their idea is new and novel would be found to be either deceptive or lazy if they cannot locate their idea in history and give an account of history's judgments on their idea. 

This doesn't mean we always accept history's verdict.  The person with the new idea may be in a position to correct history's mistakes.  But it seems to me that often we don't even ask history about our ideas and this is to our loss.

This is what C. S. Lewis was getting at in his introduction to Athanasius's "On the Incarnation."  And, G. K. Chesterton has many wonderful quotes poking fun at those who are enamored with the new and the progressive.  Here' s a a few from the Quotations of G. K. Chesterton page:

• "Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative." - Chapter 2, Heretics, 1905


• "My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday." - New York Times Magazine, 2/11/23

• "Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back." - What's Wrong With The World, 1910

• "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around." - Orthodoxy, 1908

• "The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of the mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings." - "The New House" Alarms and Discursions

Comments

[James D.]

C. S. Lewis also addressed some similar issues in Screwtape Letters, where Screwtape encouraged Wormwood to keep the patient focused on progress and the future -- never the real past, only a romanticized version of it, and certainly not the present. I've started asking myself the questions that we never seem to ask when something "new" comes along: "Is it prudent? Is it possible? Is it righteous?" Great stuff to keep in mind!

[Ken]

As Chesteron also put it:

"Nine out of ten new ideas are really old mistakes. But to a generation who wasn't around the last time these mistakes were made, they appear to be Fresh New Ideas."

To which I add: "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?"

[Rong]

Care to take a stab at the veracity of your post? I'd love to see emergent church movement examined from such a historical perspective. Think... this could lead to an interesting series of posts. :-)

Have a very Merry Christmas,
Rong

[Rie]

Hey would you see that the Djanator reads my blog. I have a birthday letter to him.

[Zeke]

Point taken, but take care not to dismiss all change as "nothing new under the sun." There actually is such a thing as real progress. Do I need to remind Protestants of this fact?